


Stars in the Attic

by okayokayigive



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-30
Updated: 2013-05-30
Packaged: 2017-12-13 11:37:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,662
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/823870
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okayokayigive/pseuds/okayokayigive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Rose has a bad dream, she finds the Doctor in the attic, where he promises a cure. Somewhere amidst the taxidermied Hoptusians, the life-sized crystal elephants, and the concrete eye of Narbillus III, the Doctor shares more of himself with Rose than he bargained for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars in the Attic

**Author's Note:**

> My submission for the TARDIS Ficathon on Tumblr. The prompt was “the TARDIS attic, as mentioned in The Shakespeare Code”; the requester was intelligencehavingfun.

Stairs.

Bouncy stairs. Squishy stairs. Spiral stairs. Stairs made out of some sort of gelatinous goo. Stairs that changed landing points like something out of Harry Potter.

Rose was  _entirely_  sick of stairs.

Still, she kept climbing, the hem of her pajama pants dragging in the (was that potting soil?) gunk on each and every new staircase she climbed.

She skittered up the metal ones, bare toes cold against the grating. She squeaked in surprise on the stairs that collapsed into an upwards slide. She skipped over missing stairs and hopscotched on the hopscotch stairs…until finally - finally! - she reached the worn, rickety-looking wooden steps that the TARDIS assured her led directly to the Doctor.

Rose wiped her feet on the small doormat and pushed open the heavy, moss-covered door. Stepping inside, her eyes tracked the sound of the Doctor’s voice to where he was perched, precariously high, mumbling to himself and looking for all the world like Winnie the Pooh stuck in Rabbit’s hole.

The Doctor stood, trainers balanced precariously on the top rung of a ladder, bum out and upper body buried in the depths of some sort of storage cubby.

“Oh, bother!” Rose thought, and burst into giggles despite herself, her reasons for coming and her annoyance at the never-ending stairs all but forgotten.

_Thump_. “Ow! Rose? Is that you? What are you doing up? I didn’t expect to see you for another few hours at least.” His voice grew progressively louder as his torso, arms, shoulders, and head emerged from his hiding place.

Suddenly remembering why she was, in fact, out of bed, Rose wrapped her arms around herself, lower lip trembling as she fought back tears.

The Doctor slid down the ladder and had his arms around her before she could answer. The comforting contact caused the dam to break, and she let loose with a sob.

“Shh. It’s okay Whatever it is, it’ll be okay. Why don’t we have a seat, okay?”

He led her over to a low sofa along the far wall, sitting her down and pulling her tightly to his side. He held her until her tears quieted and she was breathing easier before softly asking, “Nightmare?”

She nodded. “I was dreaming about Krop Tor, and hearing that voice again, over and over, saying I was going to die in battle.”

“It lied, Rose. I promise you. It lied.”

“But that wasn’t all. Then there were Daleks, and Cybermen, and a giant battle in the skies. My dad was alive, and was a hero…he saved me. And…and I saw Jimmy. I saw him get killed by a Dalek, all blue and bones showing and electric shock twitching. And I was  _happy_  about it.

What sort of an awful person am I, Doctor, to be dreaming up things like that? Worlds where I’m happy to see someone killed, even if it  _is_  Jimmy Stone? What have I become?”

“Oh, Rose.” The Doctor reached for her hand, intertwining their fingers. “Dreams are our brains’ way of working things out subconsciously so we don’t have to. They’re rarely literal.

If I were a betting man - and you know I’m not, abuse of my privilege as a time traveler and all - but if I  _were_ , I’d bet that you know how strong you are…and how weak Jimmy is and always was. Your dream that you survived the Daleks and Cybermen while he perished under attack is your brain’s way of working through who you are now. You survive. You win against all the odds. You travel through space in time with a wonderful - and frankly quite foxy - alien.”

He smiled brightly at her soft giggle and tilted her head up to look at him.

“It’s not wrong to be happy that you’re stronger than he is. He hurt you, and a part of you is finally moving past that. And that’s brilliant.”

“You really think so, Doctor?

“I know so. But…I think I have something that could make it even better.  At least I could try. If you want?”

She sniffled and nodded.

“All right then, Rose Tyler. Allons-y!”

—

Rose took in her surroundings in amazement as he led her between book cases, around walls of storage units, past stacks of ladders and climbing gear, and over several small bridges that appeared to be erected over rivers drawn with sidewalk chalk.

“Doctor, what is this place?”

“Oh, this is the attic! Long-term storage for all sorts of things. Encyclopedias (the rare liquid and gaseous versions too delicate to be kept in the library), holiday decorations (I have a taxidermied Hoptusian around here somewhere - Hoptusians were the original Easter bunnies!), golf clubs (terrestrial and anti-grav), an old set of Hazink’s Patented Revolving Doors, life-sized crystal elephants, well-sealed samples of the Rositinian bush (deadly to 99% of the universe’s life forms), a dedicated stasis chamber for pears (I can’t have them rotting and smelling up the place if they ever make their way into the TARDIS), the concrete eye of Narbillus III (dictator - now deposed - of the Malakindis on Creatifax Minor), the original animated chalk drawings from Mary Poppins (don’t need someone falling into those accidentally), several species of flowers that thrive in the dark (have to have flowers in the attic, you know), the…oh! Here we are, then! The Pellushian Dreamer’s Disc.”

The Doctor held out a shallow bowl, filled with some sort of swirling silver cloud-like substance.

Rose gasped.

“Doctor, is that a Pensieve?”

“Yep! Well, it’s the inspiration for the Pensieve, in any case. This one stores dreams, not memories, and locks them up tight. The only way to get them back is to really, really want to - for it to be your true heart’s desire. Huh. A bit of an inspiration for the Mirror of Erised too, come to think of it. Good old JK! So, are you ready to give up that dream, Rose?”

“Yeah. Definitely. So, what, do you swirl your sonic around my temple and pull the dream into the bowl or something?”

“Don’t be silly. Why would I want to do that? All you need to do is dip your fingers into the bowl. The connection creates a visual telepathic relay - it won’t go into your mind, but it will play the dream, on fast-forward, on the surface of the liquid as it transfers. When the surface clears, you’re done, and you can remove your hands. I’ll just…go around the corner here to give you some privacy,” he added, setting the bowl on a small rickety-looking table in front of her.

“No! Wait! Stay? Please? I don’t want to be alone with these images, even for a second.”

“Of course.” The Doctor shifted closer, made to grab for her hand - but realized he couldn’t hold her hand if her fingers were in the bowl, and moved behind her instead. Placing his hands on her waist, he whispered, “go ahead. I’ve got you.”

The whole process lasted a matter of moments. Rose closed her eyes, her fingers touched the surface of the silvery goo, the link was made, the relay connected, and the images from her dream slipped past each other on the surface before calming and stilling.

The seconds after that felt like they happened in slow motion. The Doctor squeezed Rose’s waist to let her know the process was over, but accidentally hit a very ticklish spot along her side. Rose jumped, startled. Her hand twitched out and knocked the rickety table, sending the Dreamer’s Disc crashing down and its contents oozing out across the floor, just coming into contact with the tip of the Doctor’s shoe.

The surface lit up again. An image of Rose and the Doctor, wrapped in each other’s arms, kissing sweetly, before running, laughing, along a shoreline.

“Doctor?”

More images: of kissing, of fireside snuggles, of intimate embraces, of a very pregnant Rose.

“Doctor, what?” Rose tore her eyes away from the now-fading images to look at the Doctor, now bright red with embarassment.

“Rose, I…”

“I don’t understand. Why would you want to hide those things away, to lock them up? Am I that repulsive to you outside of dreamland? And why are they spilling out? You said my dreams were safe there, locked away unless…”

She trailed off, remembering what he said - exactly what would unlock the dreams.

The Doctor rubbed his face, sighed, and reached for her.

“Because it’s my heart’s desire, Rose. The one adventure I can never have. Me and you. Together.”

It took a moment, but comprehension bloomed on Rose’s face in the form of a brilliant smile.

“Thought you said dreams weren’t always literal?” she asked, moving in to close the gap between them.

He turned his head away and muttered something underneath his breath.

“What was that, Doctor? I didn’t quite catch…”

Wrapping his arm around her waist and pulling her tight, he answered, “they are when they’re daydreams.”

“A dream is a wish your heart makes and all that?”

His comment about Walt’s original glass slippers, located on the shelf two aisles over, came out as an “mmmmph!” as her lips met his. Their kisses were tentative, sweet, and gentle at first, but slowly built to something more. Her nibbles on his lower lip, the first touch of his tongue to hers, they way their hips began to move of their own accord…Rose broke the kiss and leaned back to look into his eyes, giggling as they slowly opened, his lips still slightly puckered.

“What do you say we continue this downstairs? I don’t fancy walking down all those stairs after…”

The Doctor made a happy noise in his throat and raised an eyebrow at her insinuation.

Rose blushed. “After we talk some more about these dreams you’ve been hiding away.”

Pressing a quick kiss to her lips, he grabbed her hand and dragged her back they way they’d come. “Who needs stairs, Rose Tyler? There’s always the lift!”


End file.
